Out of the Green
by Iscah McKrae
Summary: AU Drabble. What if Rory had again turned from an important conversation on an important day and spotted a familiar figure standing on the lawn?


_**A/N: I've never done AU. Ever. This drabble just started writing itself in my head. I don't know if there will be more where this came from, or if this is it. It obviously does not belong to the same storyverse as either 'Pay the Piper' or 'EverFixed Mark.' Hopefully, it will at least be amusing. Don't give up hope. I'm still very definitely working on ALL of my other unfinished stories. Just adding one to keep them company...though, I'm not sure if I intend to "finish" this one. Maybe it's already finished. Maybe it isn't. You tell me. And if it isn't finished, in your estimation, ideas for how it should proceed would be GREATLY appreciated, because I honestly don't know. Okay, enough babbling. On to the drabble:**_

"What are you doing here?" Out of the blue. Except, like before, it was out of the green-standing there on the Yale lawn just as he'd stood on the grassy slope just across the bridge from the Independence Inn the day of Sookie's wedding. His hands were clasped behind his back in exactly the same attitude. His long-ago words echoed in her mind...words that had propelled her forward until she found her lips on his and the skin beneath her teal-blue dress tingling with his touch.

Jess shrugged one shoulder and absently kicked a tuft of grass as his eyes dodged the question. "I just...kinda figured I should be here since I missed the last one."

"But, how did you get in? The tickets are impossible! They're booked. All of Stars Hollow was trying to find a way scalp tickets and-"

He interrupted with another shrugging admission. "I...pulled some strings. There was a guy who owed me a favor. And there was another guy who owed him a favor. And...that guy's graduating today and his step-father or something broke his femur two days ago, so..." his eyebrows flickered upward finishing the statement.

"Please tell me some guy named Biff with a baseball bat didn't come after some guy's step-father in a dark alley."

Jess chuckled looking down at the grass, but there was a light in his eyes...a light she hadn't expected to ever see again. The smile turned half-sad a second later and Rory knew by the way his head dipped downward and by the swallow before his next words that he was kicking himself.

"I guess there really isn't any way for me to make up for the prom. But-" His words halted there.

She didn't know why he was doing any of this. She was the one who had crushed him last. Maybe he wasn't keeping score, but she was. He was supposed to hate her forever. That was how it was supposed to work. Rory was good at punishing herself, and at pushing hope away, as it was the cruelest of emotions. Killing off any residual affection Jess may have harbored for her was a way to do both, and she was sure she'd accomplished that. Holding onto that last spark of hope that someday he'd come waltzing back into her life, and for once the timing would be right-neither of them would be otherwise romantically entangled; and his life would be in order; and her life would be in order-that spark was exhausting and it just hurt...too much. So, she had taken her spiked heel and ground it into the dirt, putting out of her mind any possibility that she was crushing him with it; or at least trying to put it out of her mind. The strangled tone in his voice and the look in his eyes like a wounded animal hadn't let her put it out of her mind, though. And, that definitely put it into the realm of punishing herself. Letting those eyes tell her that she was a cold, heartless witch.

Why was he here trying to make up for high school graduation? Wishing he could turn back time and take her to her prom? He had no way of knowing that not five minutes before, Logan had walked away for good. And even if he had, there was no reason on earth that he should want her.

"Jess..."

He blinked into the distance like he wanted to say something and she couldn't help but thinking of the day she graduated from Chilton, knowing he was standing on the other end of that telephone line, blinking. She didn't talk for him this time.

After a long silence, he managed, "I wanted to make it up to you." The space between his eyebrows creased together and his lips tightened. "I know it's too little, too late, and I don't expect anything to change. I just..." The same shoulder twitched upward as it had in answer to her earlier question. "Look-I don't wanna mess up your graduation a second time. I just wanted to make sure you knew I was here..." He swallowed and bit his lips together for a second. "...in case that meant anything."

One corner of his mouth pulled upward and he licked his lips to hide it. He unclasped the hand which had held his opposite wrist behind his back, handing her a small package wrapped simply in brown paper. This time, both shoulders shrugged. "You can open it later. I'm sure you've got...parties and stuff to go to." The calloused hand that held the package a moment before scratched the back of his neck as he looked up at her from beneath dark brows before he ducked and took a step backward as he was prone to do when leaving her...as if he never really wanted to turn away, and leaving was something he did in reluctant necessity.

"Thank you...Jess." Her words made him turn back just as his feet had found themselves rotating to match the direction of his retreat. A slight bow acknowledged her thanks, and a small, sad smile joined it, and she wished she had words whenever he was walking away...more words...words to make him stay.

_**A/N: So...consensus? Scrap it? Keep going? Tell me what you'd like to see happen and it very likely will. ;-)**_


End file.
